Wannabe driver thinking of trucking

[h=3]Companies providing CDL training and jobs:[/h]Central Refrigerated Service
CRST
C.R. England
Frozen Food Express (FFE)
Knight/Squire Transportation
Milan Express
Millis Transfer
PAM
Prime
R.E. West
Roehl
Swift
Stevens
Wil-Trans

 

Roehl has a very good training program don't know about the others. Just do your home work. With most of these companies you'll be on the hook with the for a year to pay for that training they provided you.

 

I have a similar background and drive for Central Refrigerated. I was previously a manager for a service company that repaired commercial beverage equipment (high end espresso machines down to the ignorant plastic coffee machines farmer bros has in every mom and pop gas station across the country!) i use to drive 50k miles a year as a technician and the only part of my job I really loved was driving. Oh and 4 years USMC...
that being said, it sucks at first but like the military, do what you're told, stay out of trouble, and get your miles lined out. By month two my bills were piling up and I was ready to freak out. Now at four months I'm almost caught up on everything and I know how to keep my DM happy and get good mileage every week (keep your DM happy, lol)
Good luck!

 

Cross off C.R. England unless you want to be indebted to them for the Lease they will shove down your throat only to discover that you're buying THEM the truck while making practically nothing for yourself.
Just saying (been there, done that, now a Company Driver with a great tanker outfit).

 

Well, a little exciting but alot rough your situation. If you had recently discharged like a cpl of months ago and had basic driving skills related to a big truck like floating gears turning a corner with a 53 behind you there is a form 1st Sgts have that basically tell the licensing dept that you can drive and all you have to do is pass the written. Thats what I did. However I had driven for years in the service. Best advice I can give sucks but yep, you will have to find a school sponsored by some driver mill co. and do the time, starving, possibly losing things because you can't pay for them. It is rough the 1st year no doubt but once you finally get passed that then, well...your a truck driver! You can leave the .28-.30 cpm co. and apply at a .38-.42 cpm company, a cpl of years after that with the .01cpm raise you get you might land a cool dedicated run that gets you miles and home time. Or % like me which can be good or bad but heck freight is a roll of the dice, oh and don't look at the miles per week, average a month or even better 2 months, if it's 2800 to say 3300/3400 you're good if it's lower start talking. You just can't judge a company or look at the $ based weekly, freight and trking isn't like that. 52 weeks a year, guess days off refigure weeks worked expect $650.00 to $950.00 take home after taxes and your weekly advance to live on and there it is. Yes it can be better but it's best to paint it ugly so will be happy if it's better than to tell you you will get rich driving and have you quit pissed off.

 

I wish you'd keep trying to lead sheep to the slaughter . None of these carriers have "FREE" training . Most of their students leave before a year and get billed for the training .

 

With a current turnover rate of 106% for OTR companies , what percentage of students do you think complete that year ?

 

You could get in an expedite cargo van and drive without the expensive training and low pay of training companies . Get a Class B and you can get in an expedite straight truck . There's a reason OTR carriers have a turnover rate of over 100% .

 

To put the word "free" in quotations, someone should probably say "free" before you...